Benchmarking Breakdown: A Look at Class of 2011 Stopouts and Dropouts

Posted by National College Access Network on March 5, 2019

By Bill DeBaun, Director of Data and Evaluation, National College Access Network

A previous Benchmarking Breakdown examined stopouts from the high school class of 2010, but this week we revisit the topic and try to flesh it out a little more.

As NCAN members increasingly turn toward strategies that keep students engaged in their postsecondary pathway and aim to help them avoid stopping out or dropping out, it may help to understand the relative tendency to stop out and when that tends to occur. These data come from round 5 of the Benchmarking Project and examine students from the high school class of 2011 who enrolled in college the first fall following high school graduation.

First, we consider the proportion of student stopouts versus dropouts after an enrollment gap in the second year following high school graduation. For our purposes, “stopping out” refers to a gap in enrollment after which there is a subsequent enrollment in the six-year window following high school. “Dropping out” refers to an enrollment gap without a subsequent additional enrollment.

Read more to dive into the data.

http://www.collegeaccess.org/SD02122019Article2